The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Part 9

Did Elizabeth really slap Adelaide Addison stop stop If only I had been there If only I had been there stop stop Please send details Please send details stop stop Love Juliet Love Juliet From Isola to Juliet 24th April 1946 April 1946

Dear Juliet,

Yes, she did-slapped her right across the face. It was lovely.

We were all at the St Brioc School to help the children get ready for the buses to take them down to the s.h.i.+ps. The States didn't want the parents to come into the school itself-too crowded and too sad. Better to say their goodbyes outside. One child crying might set them all off.

So it was strangers who tied up shoelaces, wiped noses, put a nametag around each child's neck. We did up b.u.t.tons and played games with them until the buses came. I had one bunch trying to touch their tongues to their noses, and Elizabeth had another lot playing that game that teaches them how to lie with a straight face-I forget what it's called-when Adelaide Addison came in with that doleful mug of hers, all piety and no sense.

She gathered a circle of children around her and started to sing 'For Those in Peril on the Sea' over their little heads. But no, 'safety from storms' wasn't enough for her. She set about ordering the poor things to pray for their parents every night-who knew what the German soldiers might do to them? Then she said to be especially good little boys and girls so that Mummy and Daddy could look down on them from Heaven and BE PROUD OF THEM.

Honestly, Juliet, she had those children crying and sobbing as though their hearts were breaking. I was too shocked to move, but not Elizabeth. No, quick as an adder's tongue, she grabbed Adelaide's arm and told her to SHUT UP.

Adelaide cried, 'Let me go! I am speaking the Word of G.o.d!'

Elizabeth, she got a look that would turn the devil to stone, and then she slapped Adelaide right across the face-nice and sharp, so her head wobbled on her shoulders-and dragged her over to the door, shoved her out, and locked it. Old Adelaide kept hammering on the door, but no one took any notice. I lie-silly Daphne Post did try to open it, but I got her round the neck and she stopped.

It is my belief that the sight of a good fight shocked the fear out of those babies, and they stopped crying, and the buses came and we loaded the children on. Elizabeth and me, we didn't go home, we stood in the road and waved till the buses was out of sight.

I hope I never live to see another such day, even with Adelaide getting slapped. All those little children bereft in the world-I was glad I did not have any.

Thank you for your life story. You have had such sadness with your mum and dad and your home by the river, for which I am sorry. But me, I am glad you have dear friends like Sophie and her mother and Sidney. As for Sidney, he sounds a very fine man-but bossy. It's a failing common in men.

Clovis Fossey has asked if you would send the Society a copy of your prize-winning essay on chickens. He thinks it would be nice to read aloud at a meeting. Then we could put it in our archives, if we ever have any. I'd like to read it too, chickens being the reason I fell off a hen-house roof-they'd chased me there. How they all came at me-with their razor lips and rolling eyeb.a.l.l.s! People don't know how chickens can turn on you, but they can-just like mad dogs. I didn't keep hens until the war came-then I had to, but I am never easy in their company. I would rather have Ariel b.u.t.t me on my bottom-that's open and honest and not like a sly chicken, sneaking up to jab you.

I would like it if you came to see us. So would Eben and Amelia and Dawsey-and Eli, too. Kit is not so sure, but you mustn't mind that She might come round. Your newspaper article will be printed soon, so you could come here and have a rest. You might find a story here you'd like to tell about.

Your friend, Isola From Datasey to Juliet 26th April 1946 April 1946

Dear Miss Ashton,

My temporary job at the quarry is over, and Kit is staying with me for a while. She is sitting under the table I'm writing on, whispering. What's that you're whispering, I asked, and there was a long quiet Then she commenced whispering again, and I can make out my own name amongst the other sounds. This is what generals call a war of nerves, and I know who is going to win.

Kit doesn't resemble Elizabeth very much, except for her grey eyes and a look she gets when she is concentrating hard. But she is like her mother inside-fierce in her feelings. Even when she was tiny, she howled until the gla.s.s s.h.i.+vered in the windows, and when she gripped my finger in her little fist, it turned white. I knew nothing about babies, but Elizabeth made me learn. She said I was fated to be a father and she had a responsibility to make sure I knew more than the usual run of them. She missed Christian, not just for herself, for Kit, too.

Kit knows her father is dead. Amelia and I told her that, but we didn't know how to speak of Elizabeth. In the end, we said that she'd been sent away and we hoped she'd return soon. Kit looked from me to Amelia and back, but she didn't ask any questions. She just went out and sat in the barn. I don't know if we did right.

Some days I wear myself out wis.h.i.+ng for Elizabeth to come home. We have learnt that Sir Ambrose Ivers was killed in one of the last bombing raids in London, and, as Elizabeth inherited his estate, his solicitors have begun a search for her. They must have better ways to find her than we have, so I am hopeful that Mr Dilwyn will get some word from her-or about her-soon. Wouldn't it be a blessed thing for Kit and for all of us if Elizabeth could be found?

The Society is having an outing on Sat.u.r.day. We are attending the Guernsey Repertory Company's performance of Julius Caesar Julius Caesar-John Booker is to be Mark Antony and Clovis Fossey is going to play Caesar. Isola has been reading Clovis his lines, and she says we will all be astonished by his acting, especially when, after he's dead, he hisses, 'Thou shalt see me at Philippi!' Just thinking of the way Clovis hisses has kept her awake for three nights, she says. Isola exaggerates, but only enough to enjoy herself.

Kit's stopped whispering. I've just peered under the table, and she's asleep. It's later than I thought.

Yours, Dawsey Adams From Mark to Juliet 30th April 1946 April 1946 Darling, Just got in-the entire trip could have been avoided if Hendry had telephoned, but I smacked a few heads together and they've cleared the whole s.h.i.+pment through customs. I feel as though I've been away for years. Can I see you tonight? I need to talk to you.

Love, M.

From Juliet to Mark

Of course. Do you want to come here? I've got a sausage.

Juliet From Mark to Juliet

A sausage-how appetising. Suzette, at eight?

Love, M.

From Juliet to Mark

Say please.

J.

From Mark to Juliet

Pleased to see you at Suzette at eight.

Love, M.

From Juliet to Mark 1st May 1946 May 1946

Dear Mark,

I didn't refuse, you know. I said I wanted to think about it You were so busy ranting about Sidney and Guernsey that perhaps you didn't notice-I only said I wanted time. I've known you two months two months. It's not long enough for me to be certain that we should spend the rest of our lives together, even if you are. I once made a terrible mistake and almost married a man I hardly knew (perhaps you read about it in the papers)-and at least in that case the war was an extenuating circ.u.mstance. I won't be such a fool again.

Think about it I've never seen your home-I don't even know where it is, really. New York, but which street' What does it look like? What colour are your walls? Your sofa? Do you arrange your books alphabetically? (I hope not.) Are your drawers tidy or messy? Do you ever hum, and if so, what' Do you prefer cats or dogs? Or fish? What on earth do you eat for breakfast-or do you have a cook?

You see? I don't know you well enough to marry you.

I have one other piece of news that may interest you: Sidney is not your rival. I am not now nor have I ever been in love with Sidney, nor he with me. Nor will I ever marry him. Is that decisive enough for you?

Are you absolutely certain you wouldn't rather be married to someone more tractable?

Juliet From Juliet to Sophie 1st May 1946 May 1946

Dearest Sophie,

I wish you were here. I wish we still lived together in our lovely little studio and worked in dear Mr Hawke's shop and ate biscuits and cheese for supper every night I want so much to talk to you. I want you to tell me whether I should marry Mark Reynolds.

He asked me last night-no bended knee, but a diamond as big as a pigeon's egg-at a romantic French restaurant I'm not certain he still wants to marry me this morning-he's absolutely furious because I didn't give him an unequivocal yes. I tried to explain that I hadn't known him long enough and I needed time to think, but he wouldn't listen to me. He was certain that I was rejecting him because of a secret pa.s.sion-for Sidney! They really are obsessed with each another, those two.

Thank G.o.d we were at his flat by then-he started shouting about Sidney and G.o.dforsaken islands and women who care more about strangers than men who are right in front of them (that's Guernsey and my new friends there). I kept trying to explain and he kept shouting until I began to cry from frustration. Then he felt remorseful, which was so unlike him and endearing that I almost changed my mind and said yes. But then I imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again. We argued and he lectured and I wept a bit more because I was so exhausted, and eventually he called his chauffeur to take me home. As he shut me into the car, he leaned in to kiss me and said, 'You're an idiot, Juliet.'

And maybe he's right. Do you remember those awful, awful Cheslayne Fair novels we read the summer we were thirteen? My favourite was The Master of Blackbeath The Master of Blackbeath. I must have read it twenty times (and so did you, don't pretend you didn't). Do you remember Ransom-how he manfully hid his love for the girlish Eulalie so that she could choose freely, little knowing that she had been mad about him ever since she fell off her horse when she was twelve? The thing is, Sophie-Mark Reynolds is exactly like Ransom. He's tall and handsome, with a crooked smile and a chiselled jaw. He shoulders his way through the crowd, careless of the glances that follow him. He's impatient and magnetic, and when I go to powder my nose I overhear other women talking about him, just like Eulalie did in the museum. People notice him. He doesn't try to make them-they can't help it.

I used to get the s.h.i.+vers about Ransom. Sometimes I do about Mark, too-when I look at him-but I can't get over the nagging feeling that I'm no Eulalie. If I were ever to fall off a horse, it would be lovely to be picked up by Mark, but I don't think I'm likely to fall off a horse in the near future. I'm much more likely to go to Guernsey and write a book about the Occupation, and Mark can't abide the thought. He wants me to stay in London and go to restaurants and theatres and marry him like a reasonable person.

Write and tell me what to do.

Love to Dominic-and to you and Alexander.

Juliet From Juliet to Sidney 3rd May 1946 May 1946

Dear Sidney,

I may not be as distraught as Stephens & Stark is without you, but I do miss you and want you to advise me. Please drop everything you are doing and write to me at once.

I want to get out of London. I want to go to Guernsey. You know I've grown very fond of my Guernsey friends, and I'm fascinated by their lives under the Germans-and since. I've visited the Channel Islands Refugee Committee and read their files. I have read the Red Cross reports. I've read all I can find on Todt slave workers-there hasn't, so far, been much. I've interviewed some of the soldiers who liberated Guernsey and talked to Royal Engineers who removed the thousands of mines from the beaches. I've read all the 'uncla.s.sified' government reports on the state of the Islanders' health, or lack of it; their happiness, or lack of it; their food supplies, or lack of them. But I want to know more. I want to know the stories of the people who were there, and I can never learn those by sitting in a library in London.

For example-yesterday I was reading an article on the liberation. A reporter asked a Guernsey Islander, 'What was the most difficult experience you had during the Germans' rule?' He made fun of the man's answer, but it made perfect sense to me. The Islander told him, 'You know they took away all our wirelesses? If you were caught with one, you'd get sent off to prison on the Continent Well, those of us who had secret wirelesses, we heard about the Allies landing in Normandy. Trouble was, we weren't supposed to know it had happened! Hardest thing I ever did was walk around St Peter Port on the 7th of June, not grinning, not smiling, not doing anything to let those Germans know that I KNEW their end was coming. If they'd caught on, someone would be in for it-so we had to pretend. It was very hard to pretend not to know D-Day had happened.' of June, not grinning, not smiling, not doing anything to let those Germans know that I KNEW their end was coming. If they'd caught on, someone would be in for it-so we had to pretend. It was very hard to pretend not to know D-Day had happened.'

I want to talk to people like him (though he's probabjy off writers now) and hear about their war, because that's what I'd like to read, instead of statistics about grain. I'm not sure what form a book would take, or if I could even write one at all. But I would like to go to St Peter Port and find out.

Do I have your blessing?

Love to you and Piers, Juliet Cable from Sidney to Juliet 10th May 1946 May 1946

Herewith my blessing! Guernsey is a wonderful idea, both for you and for a book. But will Reynolds allow it?

Love, Sidney Cable from Juliet to Sidney 11th May 1946 May 1946

Blessing received. Mark Reynolds is not in a position to forbid or allow.

Love, Juliet From Amelia to Juliet 13th May 1946 May 1946

My dear,

I was delighted to receive your telegram yesterday and learn that you are coming to visit us!

I followed your instructions and spread the news at once-you have sent the Society into a whirlwind of excitement. The members instantly offered to provide you with anything you might need: bed, board, introductions, a supply of electric clothes pegs. Isola is ecstatic that you are coming and is already at work on behalf of your book. Though I warned her that it was only an idea so far, she is determined to find material for you. She has asked (perhaps threatened) everyone she knows in the market to send you letters about the Occupation; she thinks you'll need them to persuade your publisher that the subject is book-worthy. Don't be surprised if you are inundated with letters in the next few weeks.

Isola also went to see Mr Dilwyn at the bank this afternoon and asked him to let you rent Elizabeth's cottage. It is a lovely site, in a meadow below the Big House, and it is small enough for you to manage easily. Elizabeth moved there when the German officers confiscated the larger house for their use. You would be very comfortable there, and Isola a.s.sured Mr Dilwyn that he need only stir himself to draw up a lease for you. She herself will see to everything else: airing the rooms, was.h.i.+ng the windows, beating the rugs, and killing spiders.

Please don't feel as though these arrangements place you under any obligation. Mr Dilwyn was planning in any case to a.s.sess the property for its rental possibilities. Sir Ambrose's solicitors have begun an inquiry into Elizabeth's whereabouts. They have found that there is no record of her arrival in Germany, only that she was put on a transport in France, with Frankfurt as the intended destination of the train. There will be further investigations, and I pray that they will lead to Elizabeth, but in the meantime, Mr Dilwyn wants to rent the property left to Elizabeth by Sir Ambrose in order to provide income for Kit.

I sometimes think that we are morally obliged to begin a search for Kit's German relations, but I cannot bring myself to do it Christian was a rare soul, and he detested what his country was doing, but the same cannot be true for many Germans, who believed in the dream of the Thousand-Year Reich. And how could we send our Kit away to a foreign-and destroyed-land, even if her relations could be found? We are the only family she's ever known.